


Retired Extremely Dangerous

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [342]
Category: thunderbirds are go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8401252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: madilayn asked: Please do eeeettttttttttttt Grandma and Parker being badass(aka: the RED!AU)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not exactly "graphic" depictions of violence but there are guns, which grandma knows how to use

When Lord Creighton-Ward sought advice from his friend as to security arrangements for his newborn daughter, Jeff had quietly mentioned it to his mother, and left it at that.

They never talked about the past; officially, he didn’t know what she had retired from when she chose family as her duty.

Unofficially, she made a few quiet calls.

She knew she wasn’t the only one still yearning for a challenge.

 * * *

“Parker,” she greets him, wiping the bead of blood off her bottom lip with the back of her hand.

“M’Lady,” he replies, handing her a Luger and a spare clip.  “Unfortunately, we’re out of rounds for the shotgun.”

“Pity,” she said, chambering a round.  “Welp, can’t be choosy.  Come on.”

It’s been twenty years since she recommended him to his Lordship’s service, forty since their last op together.  They fall back into the pattern like it was only yesterday that they were going to places they shouldn’t have been to do things that officially no-one would acknowledge.

It’s only two hundred meters from their point of entry to the cell where the Thunderbirds and their London agent are being held.  But it’s slow going, clearing the way and securing the path behind them.  The echo from Parker’s 38 Special rings around the room, and she winces against the noise.  “That’s the last of the rifle ammunition, I’m afraid,” he announces.

She snorts to herself.  “Somehow I remember this stuff lasting longer.”

Parker’s sniff reminds her of Penelope, locked up with her boys at the end of this corridor, if John’s strange little computer friend is to be believed.  “They don’t make them like they _h’_ used too,” he agreed as he tested the weight of the stock. Rifles were useless as firearms in close quarters, but the heavy butt made a decent blunt force weapon if nothing else presented itself.

She’d taught him that trick.  It’s strangely touching that he remembers.

There were only two guards on the door, easily disabled. The locks and the alarms were all run by computer now, and she had a direct line to the smartest, if sassiest, computer in the world. Even so, the seconds felt like eons as they stood watch and waited for Eos to crack the code.

“Grandma?” Gordon sounds young, and she feels the old rage flare to life at the sight of his split lip and blooming black eye.  The others, less likely to backchat, look slightly better but still too young and too good to be in this place.  “Shake the lead out, kiddo, we’re leaving.”  She sets as fast a pace as she dares, her knee already twinging in the pattern of old wounds.  She hears her boys fall in behind, Scott silencing their questions. She knows that Parker would take the rear with his own charge.

Later, there would be questions.  There would be no room for secrets.  But right now, there was two hundred meters and a base full of very bad men ahead of her, three bullets in her gun, and the most important things in the world behind her.

She grits her teeth and runs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ex-spy grandma and special guest Aunt Sylvia - plus I am reliably informed that the fandom consensus is that Grandma is a Ruth, so let’s roll with that before pronouns get too tangled
> 
> UPDATE: I have been informed that "Ruth" came from the fanfics of someone writing as Boomercat, so hat tip to them :)

 

“ _We’re at tea with a_ Lady!” 

The words she’d hissed at Virgil, not twenty-four hours before, came back to her suddenly as Sylvia gently poured out a fragrant stream into two fine china cups.  “One sugar, wasn’t it?”

She nodded, watching like a hawk as the tongs reached into the sugar bowl.  But Sylvia had been in the game long before Ruth had started, and had survived long after Ruth had retired and withdrawn from the field.  Sylvia drops two cubes onto a small side plate, slicing them in half with a hard stab before dropping one half of each cube into each cup.

Sylvia had no reason to poison her, but it was a sweet gesture of welcome nonetheless.  Ruth returned the salute with a nod, lifting the cup up to appreciate the aroma before taking a delicate sip.  It was, as expected, perfect.

Sylvia always met her for tea, a subtle reminder of who had been victorious the last time they had sparred for real.  Tea to remind Ruth who left with the T.E.A., a petulant declaration of someone still keeping score. 

Ruth was older now, and wiser, and now just appreciated any irony that came with petite fours.  

They chatted away, two mismatched old ladies tucked away in a discreet corner of the teahouse.  Only the most educated and watchful observer would notice the security posted by all the doors, the way both ladies sat ready to make a quick exit or a defensive dive to cover.

Old habits died hard, or you did.  That had been the watchword of their day, and their presence here, in this place and at this time, bore out the truth of the saying.

Ruth and Sylvia sipped their tea and ate their dainties, chattering away.  In coded phrases and careful chosen statements, the discussion slowly turned to the business at hand.

Ruth had left the game a long time ago.  But the monster who took her son from her was back, and she had made a promise to her bones to protect those boys.

Sylvia was watching her from over the paper-thin rim of her cup.  “It will be interesting to have you back, my dear,” she purred, lips pulled back in what could charitably be called a smile.

“Tell me about it.”  Ruth put down her own cup, the rattle of the saucer loud in their little quiet bubble. “Just want to be sure,” she murmured low.  “I’m not looking to settle old scores, Sylvie.”

The old nickname, once a taunt, now just had Sylvia smiling for real.  “Oh, that is quite understood.  In this matter, we are of a similar objective.”  She rose, the conference over.  “I will, of course, inform you of any changes to that situation.  I do still owe you for Bucharest after all.”

Ruth grinned as she pushed herself up as well.  Bucharest had been fun, but not as fun as twenty years of watching Sylvia squirm, unable to clear the debt of honor.  “I appreciate that.  Likewise.”

Sylvia left in a swirl of silks and perfumes, her retinue falling in behind her.

Ruth waited until the doors had closed, the noise dying away.  Only then did she lean over, an old lady catching her balance as she fetched her handbag.  Her questing fingers scrabbled along the edge of the table until they found the small envelope Sylvia had pressed up under there for her to find.  

Ruth slipped it into her pocket of her hoodie and made her own exit, whistling softly to herself.

The game was always at its most fun when they were all playing the same side.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz has joined Team Enabler with: THE TIME PENELOPE HAD TO PRETEND NOT TO BE AN ENORMOUS FANGIRL
> 
> i first went “would Penelope know?” THEN THIS HAPPENED!  (follows on from the first two)

Espionage was the family business.  Penny had grown up practicing her eavesdropping on relatives who knew for sure she was there, and who gave her discreet tips for camouflaging herself better.  As she improved, she caught more whispers, half-heard stories that were fleshed out year by year.

She learned of Aunt Sylvia’s skills with seducing men out of their secrets, their assets, and then their life, usually in that order.  She heard of Uncle Bernard’s abilities to change faces the way other men changed ties, of Cousin Grace’s facility with languages, and of hundreds of other relatives and family friends, each with abilities that were admired in secret and denied in public.

She’d grown up knowing that British agents were the best agents, but that there were a few outsiders and colonials who’s abilities were acknowledged by the family to be more than merely competent.

The spy known only by the codephrase the ‘Scarlet Tanager’ was one of the best of them. There were plenty of stories about her, all told from second-hand details; few had seen her work up close.   Penny had pieced her story together from the fragments, building in her mind a picture of her hero.  

Penny played in her nursery as a child, pretending to be the dashing American woman who danced through security and stole secrets from right out under the enemy’s nose.  Parker, her security that father insisted accompany her everywhere, just _hrumphed_  to himself as Penny cast him as the enemy, her attempts to steal his newspaper thwarted more often than not.

As she grew older, began her own training, she filled in more of the details.  The Scarlet Tanager had stolen the nuclear measure right out of an Iranian reactor.  The Scarlet Tanager had walked right  into the Supreme Workers Assembly of North Korea and walked out with the maps detailing every weapons test site for the next five years.  The Scarlet Tanager moved like a ghost through war zones and palaces, always coming away with her prize before her adversaries even knew she was there.

Penny sits now, on the rough crate she’d claimed as her throne while they waited for final extraction back to safety.  She’s still smarting from the ambush, that she and the brothers had been caught so easily.  

It’s cold in the warehouse, the watery light of pre-dawn spilling into the open doors and throwing everything else into shadows.  Grandma Tracy cast a diminutive figure in her soft boots and her comfortable track suit.  The Luger fits easily in her hand, her touch confident as she checks her weapon.

As if feeling Penny’s eyes on her, Grandma Tracy looks up and smiles warmly at her, her friend’s sweet grandmother once more.  “You doing ok there, kiddo?”  Her voice is pitched low, a private moment between the two women.

“You’re the Scarlet Tanager.”  The pieces came together the moment she said the words.  Penny had written her graduate thesis on the agent, piecing together all the reports to paint a profile of one of the greatest exfiltration agents the US system had ever produced.  She was still her hero.

Grandma Tracy chuckles to herself.  “Scarlet Tanager, huh?  I knew her, once.”  The _click_  of her Luger locking back together echoed off the crates.  “Me, now.  I’m just Ruth Tracy.”  She glances over, to where Scott was giving his brothers a pep talk.  “And I’m getting them home.”  Grandma Tracy is shorter than Penelope, but not by much, and the difference evaporates as Ruth straightens up, her spine stiffening.  “Though I could use a hand with that.”

Penelope slips off her makeshift seat and accepts the weapon Ruth passes to her.  “I think I can manage that,” she promises.

Ruth nods, and Penny understands why this woman was a legend and a ghost.  Then the moment passes, and Grandma Tracy turns to chivvy her boys out of the warehouse.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (it appears i am posting this story out of order)

Ruth likes old tech because it’s the least likely to betray her.

The boys, technophiles down to their cores, all treat it like a little family joke; old grandma, with her old compass and paper map.  Old fashioned ways for an old lady.

If she had her way, they would never have known the reasons why.  

There was Ana, who’d gloated about beating Ruth’s score on the firing range only to get sniped on her very first assignment by someone from the Opposite Side who’d hacked her GPS and figured out her route.  There was Pietr, in the cells in Katowice, who had stripped his compass and used the tiny magnet and small wire to beat the lock and free them.  There was Hannah, who loved her toys but forgot, just once, that batteries still weren’t perfect.  

So many stories, and few happy endings.

Ruth uses technology; she’s good at it, even.  Before they lobbed TB5 into the sky, she ran the dispatch and had helped her son set the networks that John now plays like a virtuoso.  But she knows that the simpler something is, the less likely it is to go pear-shaped at an unexpected moment.

A gun is a very simple thing.

Finger pulls trigger.  Trigger releases hammer.  Hammer strikes primer.  Primer ignites gunpowder, and in a literal flash, the bullet finds its target.  Aiming is all muscle memory, etched into her very bones by trainers who made it all very simple in the hope that their recruits would continue to come back alive.

Ruth intends to make it out alive.

The Opposite Side are playing a very complicated game, and Ruth doesn’t approve of their tactics, let alone their objectives.  She clears another level on her path out and pauses for breath. Her objectives are simple–take back what was theirs.  

Simple objectives set along a path mapped in her mind and ready to run.

Ruth approves of the way Kayo has been trained, the caches she’s left for herself that Ruth now takes full advantage of.  She has a few go bags of her own, a few surprises tucked away that Kayo is still too young to know about.  Ruth still moves quietly, for all that she feels her joints creaking as she makes her way to the high ground and puts the first simple step of her plan into action.

The smoke clings thickly as she makes her exit down to the secondary hangar.

The jet is no Thunderbird, but it’s plenty fast enough for her needs.  And it’s already warmed up on the tarmac and ready to go. “I have planned the optimal flight path to avoid surveillance detection while maintaining speed of approach,” Eos announces as Ruth ensures she’s alone.

Eos is a complication, but she’s John’s, and that’s good enough for her.

Ruth hasn’t flown in too long, but the dark sky is clear, the wind calm over the ocean.  “There has been no activity on any Thunderbirds frequency for fifty-nine minutes, twelve seconds,” Eos announces as their flight path levels off over the dark waves.  She sounds young, worried, and Ruth suddenly feels for strange creature.  She’s known fear herself, but has only ever heard the chatter of a world grateful to see a Thunderbird.  The attack clearly has shaken her.  “I have triangulated last known GPS coordinates, I can….”

“Go dark,” Ruth orders.  “We’re doing this my way.”

John once commented in passing that Eos was meaningful even in silence.  Ruth now understands what he meant by that as the seconds tick by with only the roar of the jets for company.  “My way is more efficient.  I can calculate options, routes and possibilities faster than any human.”  There’s another pause, then she adds tartly.  “Even a human in their prime.”

“Kiddo,” Ruth told her as she opened her go bag.  “My way’s simpler.”

As the jet powered towards the first glimmer of dawn, Ruth laid out the tools she hoped never to use again, and set to preparing what she’d need when they landed. 

Parker would be waiting, and then they’d go to work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> before, well, everything

Ruth was exfiltration; if she did her job properly, no-one should ever even know she was there.  But even the best got caught; they got unlucky or just unwise, and their work promised no rescue except what they could engineer themselves.  

Ruth had been one of the smallest recruits in her intake, the shortest by half a head.  Her first time on the mat, the guy who had claimed the role of class bully had just sat on her until the instructor called time.  It had been galling, infuriating, made worse by the fact everyone was watching, waiting for her to explode.

But she had been recruited in part for her patience.  She’d bided her time, then did what she did best.  Her tormentor had run the rest of the training as bald as a coot, and had never bothered her again. 

Gordon came by his pranking streak honestly.

Her fourth grandson is a dark shadow beside her now, crouched low, making the best use of limited cover.  In another time, another life, she’d be dropping hints and making calls to recruiters.

But Gordon is hers, and anyone who tried to come claim him would discover just how well she remembered her lessons.

“Grandma?” he whispered, and she crouched down slowly beside him. “Ready?”

He’s full of energy, excited and excitable despite the fact that it’s been months since he’d come home with a fistful of gold medals.  Jeff’s not paying him enough attention, preoccupied with scheming his schemes, and Ruth’s done waiting for him to come to his senses on his own.  It was a grandmother’s prerogative to argue her grandchildren’s rights.

Especially since Jeff’s schemes were looking to engulf all five, even Alan, still in school and with a head full of dreams.

But for now, she’s got her work cut out, keeping Gordon out of mischief, keeping Alan’s feet on the ground, alongside providing a sounding board for Virgil as he looked down all the paths before him and a home for Scott and John, both too focused to of where they were going to remember were they were now.

Ruth was a trained and seasoned spy; it would be a poor reflection on her skills if she couldn’t multi-task.

She let’s Gordon take the lead.  Today’s target is John, who has been snapping like a turtle all week at anyone who gets too close.  Grandma has designated her own son a secondary objective, nice to get but not essential for success.

She and Gordon breached the perimeter easily and did a rapid recon to confirm security arrangements.  John’s lab at Tracy Towers was empty, John and his father still out at their meeting.  “Quickly,” Ruth whispered.

The computers were locked, but that didn’t deter them.  Every security system had a point of weakness, after all, and John had so helpfully left his precision tools on the bench.

Next to her, Gordon was opening any drawer unlocked, emptying his pockets into the stationary trays and blueprint tubes.  “Candy?” Ruth asked as she pulled John’s keyboard towards her.

Gordon shrugged.  “He’s working hard, he needs the energy.”

Ruth grinned and began levering the device apart.  “You’re such a thoughtful brother.”

Gordon beamed as he pulled out a package of balloons and went to work stuffing the storage closet in the far corner.

Ruth bent to her work.  Usually she’d just reorder the keys, but John typed like a concert pianist.  He’d need a _special_ touch, and this was guaranteed to get his attention and tip him immediately into Gordon’s little traps.

It didn’t take her too long to short out the contacts, rewiring the circuit.  She put the keys back, then tapped a few on the login screen, grinning at the line of gibberish her name produced.  She’d like to see him work through the night on _that_.

She heard Gordon’s watch vibrate from across the room.  “Time, kiddo, let’s get moving.”

Gordon scurried down the corridor, as subtle as a landmine.  Ruth paused at the door, giving the room one last sweep, but nothing seemed obviously amiss.  Flicking off the light, she carefully closed the door behind her and made her escape.

Fifteen minutes later, she watched from the upstairs foyer as Gordon led John on a merry chase through Tracy Industries and down the open central staircase, leaping over the railings as John sprinted after him.  Gordon was cackling too loudly as he threw jellybeans in his wake, which just seemed to make John chase him hard.  

“Very funny, mother,” Jeff said dryly from behind her.

Ruth leaned on the railing, grinning at the chaos below.  “Let them be kids, just a little while longer.”

Jeff joined her at the railing, holding out a handful of Gordon’s candies.  Ruth chose a mint, unwrapping it slowly as Gordon dodged and dove past John’s grasping hands and made a bolt for the front doors.

Jeff chuckled beside her, and Ruth chalked up another successful mission.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon prompted: Grandma Tracy + safeword and preludeinz suggested something in the RED!au

Every one of the boys had a version of the memory.  Scott and Alan and Gordon remembered it as part of a game, laughing and giggling, being scooped up into cuddles as words were whispered in their ear.

Virgil remembers the way the charcoal stuck to his fingers as they lay on the floor, sketching and drawing the concept.

John remembers the way the colour in the leaves was starting to change, how scratchy his new bobble hat was as he held grandma’s hand and listened intently to her explain the idea.

The idea was the common thread across all of them; the same key phrases repeated for each boy as they grew old enough to understand, echoing down the line of siblings and reinforced until it became part of the family gospel.

 _This_ is what you said if you were worried and wanted someone to come check.   _This_ was what you said if you were afraid, but not directly in danger.   _This_ was what you said if you were in danger, but couldn’t just call for help.  As they grew older, became more independent, their grandmother added other keys to their secret lexicon.   _This_ was how you left a trail that could be followed.   _This_ was how to stop being followed.

Grandma only ever heard the words said back to her once.

It was John, as she had expected, as she had dreaded.  John, who eschewed the company of others, who liked his solitude.  The only one of the five whose own inclinations predisposed him for a  straight up black-ops black-bagging.

“Hey grandma, just calling to check that you’re okay to take me and my friend to the mall on Saturday?”  Her heart turned to ice, even as she snapped her fingers at Jeff’s man Kyrano, waving him over with a gesture.

“The one out by the highway,” she asked.   _Have you turned on your locator?_

“Yeah, grandma. That one.”  Ruth nodded, mouthing _locator’s on_  to Kyrano.  A few quick taps, and he was nodding back.  They had his location.  A glance told her he was about three blocks south of the library, off his usual path.  Evasive maneuvers had obviously failed.

Kyrano tapped a building ahead of John’s projected path.   _Friend_ , he mouthed, his hand already bringing up his own comm.

Ruth licked her lips, but out of all the boys, John was the one most likely to keep up with improvisation.  “Oh, by the way sweetie, on your way home from the library, could you run an errand for me?  My friend borrowed my book, wants to return it.  She’s…” she glanced at the comm Kyrano was holding open for her and rattled off the address.

There was a pause.  “Got it, grandma.”  To someone that didn’t know him the way his grandmother did, John’s tone hadn’t changed.  But she could hear his worry shift to purpose now that he had options.

Ruth chattered away, mouth on autopilot, keeping John on the line with innocuousness that would read to anyone listening as an old woman’s blatherings.

She was cut off by the sound of tyres squealing, a sharp curse.  “John?” she asked, but the only response was the sound of fabric brushing his comm, feet slapping on concrete, heavy breathing.  Another curse, a yell of “in here boy,” and then the ambiance of the sound changed. 

The line crackled.  “Grandma?”  John sounded young, nose stuffed, voice trembling.

“Report,” Ruth snapped before remembering this wasn’t an agent, this was a ten year old boy.  “Johnny, talk to me.”

John’s breathing was regaining a rhythm, deep but shaky.  “Some guys in a van came over the kerb.  They had masks on..”

“Breathe, Johnny,” Ruth soothed, staring at Kyrano.  He was whispering on his comm, but he caught Ruth’s eye and gave a firm little nod.

“I’m fine, grandma…the doorman says I should go upstairs?”

Kyrano was snapping his comm shut.  “That’s Bernard, my friend.  He was in my unit in the war, he’s good.”

Ruth swallowed.  “Go with him, sweetie.  We’ll be there shortly.”  She didn’t close her comm until John hung up.  “I’m coming with.”

Kyrano already had her coat, was handing it across to her.  “Wasn’t arguing, ma’am.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prelude prompted RED!AU and "before"

Alan found it strange, to think of Grandma before she was Grandma.  He knew, intellectually, that the world hadn’t started when he had, and for most other things he could easily imagine what they had been like before Alan Tracy existed in the world.

But Grandma was _Grandma_ , eternal and unchanging.

He was struggling to map her onto the image projected from the Litetype, of a flamehaired woman, smiling softly at something or someone beyond the camera, wearing a dress that was fashionable decades ago.

It was the gun in her hand, he decided.  Grandma and guns just did not belong together.

“I was about your age, Virgil,” Grandma said behind them.  “When some gentlemen in very nice suits knocked on my door and made me an offer to serve my country.”

Grandma brushed past Alan to look up at the image hovering in the middle of the darkened room.  “I honestly thought this was the way to change the world, to make it better.”  She turned, and Alan could see the young woman in the picture in the set of Grandma’s jaw, the softness of  her smile.  “But when I realized your father was coming, I decided to find another way.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prel requested more RED....

Scott knew she’d done something similar before.  He was just trying very,  _very_  hard not to think about how long it had been between then and now. “Any time, Grandma,” he yelled in place of all the  _no, don’t do it, we’ll find another way_  he wanted to shout.  They were out of options – that’s why they were trying this at all.

“Little closer.”  Even over comms, Scott could tell she was gritting her teeth.  “Almost there, kiddo, don’t freak out on me now.”

He muttered something obscene under his breath, heard her laugh “language!”  

Before them, the rocky flat had an abruptly cut-off look, the land dropping with cliff-like suddenness.  Scott had to fight every instinct to take his foot off the pedal, to wrench this pod around to take its chances with the mecha-scorpions that had appeared from nowhere to encircle them and cut them off from the gentle, easy incline back down to where Two was parked.

Gordon and Virgil were already heading back in, mechas of their own to contend with.  At least their puzzle didn’t include a cliff and a crazy old lady.  “Grandma!” Scott yelled as the horizon dipped one last time.

The firing of the grapnel sent a shudder through the tiny pod.  Scott felt the treads lose traction, the pod swinging despite his attempts to hold a straight line.

They swung out over air, and Scott risked a glance back to see the scorpion mechas fail to stop in time.  They tumbled in a flow of metal and rock and sand down the cliff.  Scott’s inner ear felt the pod swing and shift on the end of the line, the gimble mount already twisting to bring them to a hard but safe landing on the side of the cliff.  Scott hit the brakes just in time to stop the treads from gouging out the soft slope.

“Well,” Scott exhaled hard, feeling his heart rate come back down.  “Nice shot.”

Grandma just laughed, reaching forward over the seat to warmly grip his shoulder.  “Still got it.  Now what’s say we get down from here and go help your brothers.”

“Sure thing Grandma.” He paused.  “Any ideas how to get down from here?”

“Scott!” She growled.

Scott laughed, already flicking the power for the winch.  “Joking, joking.  Going down.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> madilayn asked  
> Please - can you give us more Grandma & Great Aunt Sylvia being spies?

They haven’t told her what it does, only:  
a) they want it, and;  
b) they’re not the only ones who do.

It’s a race, pure and simple, no matter how many ten dollar words they hang off it in the brief.  It’s a chase, against a rabbit she can’t see, for a doohickey that they have to win.

That it’s an uneven playing field just makes it more fun.  She knows she’s not their first choice; this race crosses a fancy ball where you have to know your forks and have opinions on champagne deeper than what Ruth can fake with random words like  _fruity_  and  _tart_.  But she’s the only available operative for a hundred miles, and the little regional wars are starting to join up into a wall that would slow down someone born classy too much to get her in time.

She’ll just have to fake it til she makes it, in her own inimitable way.

Ruth is honest enough, though, to know her limits.  She goes in as staff, smiling blandly as she pushes a catering cart along the edges of the ball.

Somewhere out there is runner number two.  And beyond them, the T.E.A.

The great thing about a waitresses’ uniform was it’s like a cloak of invisibility around rich people.  She watched their gazes bounce off and through her as she snaked through the crowd and past the pretty blonde cornered and getting propositioned by a drunk boy who slurred his H’s.  “Come on, Sylvie, just a taste….”

Ruth grinned as Sylvia slapped her companion.  She’d have stayed to watch, maybe even put a boot in in honour of the sisterhood, but she was on the clock.  The lock snipped shut, and she propped a chair under the door handle just in case before turning to feel her way deeper into the private parts of the house.

The safe was old fashioned, just like the ones she used to pick for fun back in Kansas before she went into juvie.  And after, though she wouldn’t admit that until the statute of limitations had expired.  But she could appreciate any lock she needed an empty glass to unlock – it felt classic, and classy.

The T.E.A was about as big as a teapot, the only item in the safe.  Ruth shrugged to herself and shook out the garbage bag she’d stolen from the kitchen.  Who’d stop a waitress with a garbage bag, even if it was clinking?  She emptied the waste paper basket by the desk just in case before swinging the safe closed and resetting the room as she had found it.

The sound of someone coming up the stairs stopped her with her foot on the first step down.  Melting back, Ruth disappeared into the shadows of a small nook and watched with interest as the girl from downstairs, Sylvie, rushed faster than Ruth could manage in those heels down the hall and into the office.

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the office door slam in frustration.  Ruth looked up just in time to see Sylvie lean over the banister.  Blowing a kiss and getting a glare in return, Ruth ducked out onto the lower landing and through a green baize door.  She heard heels thunder past the hall outside, right past the servant’s door as if it were invisible.

Grinning to herself, Ruth sauntered through the bustling kitchen and out the back door to freedom.


End file.
